Wars of The Three Kingdoms - Aftermath

Aftermath

While the Wars of the Three Kingdoms pre-figured many of the changes that would shape modern Britain, in the short term they resolved little. The English Commonwealth did achieve a compromise (though a relatively unstable one) between a monarchy and a republic. In practice, Oliver Cromwell exercised political power because of his control over the Parliament's military forces, but his legal position remained unclear, even when he became Lord Protector. None of the several proposed constitutions ever came into effect. Thus the Commonwealth and the Protectorate established by the victorious Parliamentarians left little behind it in the way of new forms of government.

Two important legacies remain from this period:

1. after the execution of King Charles I for high treason, no future British monarch could expect that his subjects would tolerate perceived despotism;
2. the excesses of New Model Army, particularly that of the Rule of the Major-Generals, left an abiding mistrust of military rule in England.

English Protestants experienced religious freedom during the Interregnum, but not English Roman Catholics. The new authorities abolished the Church of England and the House of Lords. Cromwell dismissed the Rump Parliament and failed to create an acceptable alternative. Nor did Cromwell and his supporters move in the direction of a popular democracy, as the more radical fringes of the Parliamentarians (such as the Levellers) wanted.

The New Model Army occupied Ireland and Scotland during the Interregnum. In Ireland, the new government confiscated almost all lands belonging to Irish Catholics as punishment for the rebellion of 1641; harsh Penal Laws also restricted this community. Thousands of Parliamentarian soldiers settled in Ireland on confiscated lands. The Commonwealth abolished the Parliaments of Ireland and Scotland. In theory, these countries had representation in the English Parliament, but since this body never received real powers, such representation remained ineffective. When Cromwell died in 1658 the Commonwealth fell apart without major violence, and Charles II returned as King of England, Scotland and Ireland in 1660.

Under the English Restoration, the political system returned to the constitutional position of before the wars. The new régime executed or imprisoned for life those responsible for the regicide of Charles I. Neo-Royalists dug up Cromwell's corpse and gave it a posthumous execution. Religious and political radicals held responsible for the wars suffered harsh repression. Scotland and Ireland regained their Parliaments, some Irish retrieved confiscated lands and the New Model Army disbanded. However, the issues that had caused the wars — religion, the power of Parliament and the relationship between the three kingdoms — remained unresolved, only postponed to re-emerge as matters fought over again in the Glorious Revolution of 1688. Only after this point did the features of modern Britain seen in the Civil Wars emerge permanently: a Protestant constitutional monarchy with England dominant and a strong standing army.